When the Tour de France has days like today with great weather conditions, a great course, massive crowds on the road and on TV, Im in love with it! What a day!

I would agree to a certain extent that the beginning of the stage wasnt super exciting to watch but with the hell of a finish we had today, you have to recognize that we are having a great show for almost a week now.

Cancellara has literally exploded in the first climb of this Tour and has lost his yellow jersey. It was maybe the only fact that we could have forecast for today.

Then, its not Contador nor Lance, as I thought, who got the yellow jersey, its the Italian, Nocentini, who is the new leader by only 6 seconds! No doubt that Contador will claim his due tomorrow and that we will have a new yellow jersey! And watch out for Lance who is just around the corner just two seconds behind!

Isnt that great? Isnt what we want?

So please join me in congratulating Lance for his awesome start on this Tour. Its incredible to do what he is doing with so little time to train. He is already racing for the win. I would like to meet anyone who could have predicted that a couple months ago. I mean, the guy retired for 3 years, had a great time and comes back to one of the most difficult sports where you have to be ready to hurt yourself everyday. Its such a great achievement to be here and be among the best already.

I heard today, in the backstage, that its almost guaranteed that Lance will be riding next year for his own team called Livestrong. Nike will be the main partner and they will be riding Trek bikes, of course. I talked with some friends who ensured me that this will happen. What a great news! Im so stoked about that. We will get to see the legend again in France!

This news makes me realize how lucky we are to be part of that and be able to enjoy these great moments of sports. What else can bring you such excitement?

You never know what can happen in sports. Look at todays race: a French man who just turned pro in September won the stage!

There is magic in sports and I hope you are seeing as much as I am.

Enjoy the Tour, enjoy the sports, its all good!

Ronan

Ronan Pensec participated eight times in the Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates Ronan Pensec Travel, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

Today was supposed to be a transition day so usually you use these days to “recover” a bit and prepare yourself for the next challenge which, for instance, is tomorrow with the first climb of this Tour.

Unfortunately, the rain was on the Tour today and with heavy showers, this transition day became actually a very stressful day for the riders as the roads were super slippery.

It usually doesn’t rain much in this part of France and Spain so the roads are pretty dusty. If you add rain to it, they become very slippery and super risky as there were some downhill today.

Lots of wipeouts, and obviously a lot of tension for the leaders because they can’t slow down, they must stick to the pack and be ready for any echappée.

The Astana team showed the most experience and self-control today and they are definitely now my favourites.

I even think that Lance is going to grab the Yellow jersey tomorrow in Andorra. He's got everything he needs to make it happen and Contador is under big pressure here. I just saw him passing by 5 minutes ago and there were hundreds of supporters on him trying to get a shot or an autograph from him. It’s not easy to handle that much stress and it could have some impact tomorrow, I think.

The only big question tomorrow is Cancellara. I know he recently won the Tour of Switzerland recently and that he has lost 5kg but I doubt he can compete with Lance in the mountains.

It’s hard to really make a guess here but if Cancellara can compete with Lance on hilly courses, we are going to have a hell of a Tour de France!

So stay tuned tomorrow for some great action and a potential comeback of Lance with the Yellow Jersey!

How exciting is that?!

Yours in Sport,

Ronan

Ronan Pensec participated eight times in the Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates Ronan Pensec Travel, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

After an epic team time trial yesterday, it was obvious that riders would slow down a bit. The time trial yesterday combined with a potential strong wind today forced the teams to adopt a very laid-back approach. No one really planned anything and gave much energy for the win. We got lucky enough that the wind didnt blow too much because this could have impacted the race as the wind could have perturbed the races rankings.

Tomorrow will be another transition day, I think, until Friday with the first climb of this years Tour. Until then, dont expect much to happen.

I was once again glad to see that Lance did a very smart race, managing his efforts, keeping the pressure on the competition and making sure the race was under control.

I would also like to take this opportunity to underline the quality of Lances teammates' work. They are doing great work at protecting him and Im starting to wonder about Contadors take. We will see when the course will get hilly. This is where we will know if Lance is going for it or supporting Contador.

Finally, Cavendish won the peloton sprint once again and is definitely the ultimate sprinter. He is unbeatable today and I cant see someone who could threaten him. Sprints are under control as well unfortunately

I hope you enjoyed the race like I did and stay tuned for more fun in the upcoming days!

Yours in Sport,

Ronan

Ronan Pensec participated eight times in the Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates Ronan Pensec Travel, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

For only a few milliseconds Lance Armstrong will not wear the yellow jersey tomorrow!

There are no words to describe what Lance did today and what he is doing for the sport of cycling and for France.

We haven’t had such an exciting Tour de France to watch in years. I would be surprised to hear someone saying that he knows what is going to happen this year and who is going to wear the yellow jersey in Paris.

I haven’t seen so much crowd on the Tour in a decade and the TV audience is also very high compared to the previous years.

No doubt that this is for Lance and we must thank Mr. Armstrong because he is giving so much back to the Tour by just being himself.

The guy is more accessible than before and you can feel that he is super relaxed. This is one of the greatest champions of all time for those who had a doubt.

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong, for what you do for cycling! We need you!

Yours in Sport,

Ronan

Ronan Pensec participated eight times in the Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates Ronan Pensec Travel, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

What a nice stage to watch today! You didn’t need to watch it from the beginning as nothing happened during the first 150k and to be honest, I was a little worried that some riders would fall asleep on their bikes as the pace was so slow and the race itself quite soporific.

But we got lucky enough that the race radically changed in one single turn. One turn that changed the whole race and maybe the entire first week of this Tour de France!

In one single turn, a group leaded by the Columbia team left the peloton and created an echappée that would hang on till the end of the race.

All of a sudden, the Columbia team, the yellow jersey Cancellara and the inevitable Lance Armstrong were leaving guys like Schleck, Sastre and Contador in the peloton!

And what is crazy is that these three guys didn’t even try to make it back with Lance and Cancellara. They just stuck in the peloton even if the echappée was not going fast at all. What were they thinking?

Even worse, their teammates didn’t make the effort to make it back with the echappée! Honestly, I still wonder how did this happen.

Honestly, you have the yellow jersey leaving the pack supported by his whole team, you have Lance and four other Astana guys and what do they do? They just look at them. Come on!!!

They have team managers, they have the experience, they are trained, they have a strategy, they know who to watch after and they have headsets linking them with the team manager who is supposed to know what is going on!

I’m seriously laughing at these team managers who have been in cycling for 20 years and can’t even see what was obvious! This is just not acceptable from a sports standpoint. You can’t let Lance and Cancellara leave like that, you have to be stupid or you just don’t care.

So here we are now with Lance just 40 seconds away from the yellow jersey and a team time trial just around the corner. I’m telling you now: Lance is going to wear the yellow jersey again and who knows what can happen after.

In the end, we now have a very exciting Tour de France to watch and I’m super happy for Lance.

The pressure is definitely on his shoulders but we know the man and we know that it will actually boost him…if he needs any boost now!

Lance is going to wear the yellow jersey, attract all the attention on him and during this time, the real favourite, Contador, can rest, manage his physical condition and strike hard in the mountain stages where he is supposed to win the Tour.

You know what? It reminds me a Tour de France with Greg Lemond when a young French guy of his team took the yellow jersey for a couple days.

That French guy was being asked to give everything he had to help Greg win the Tour. He did his best and, at some point, his team manager came over and told him to step back and help Greg endorse the yellow jersey…that’s what the French guy did and a couple days later, Greg won his Tour de France as forecast!

That French man was actually me…and what Lance is doing today reminds me a bit of that and I can tell you that he is having a very good time out there. Let’s see how long he can keep the momentum for!

I hope you enjoyed the race and that you are as excited as me for tomorrow!

Yours in sport,

Ronan

Ronan Pensec participated eight times in the Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates Ronan Pensec Travel, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

With a wipeout of one of the Euskatel guys, we could have lost all the top sprinters but we got lucky enough that there wasn’t any crowd or barrier where the accident happened.

Except for the accident, it was a quiet stage today and it all ended up in the final sprint totally dominated by Cavendish who showed the world what a sprinter he is…and what a great team he's got. It’s important to highlight that because you can’t win a sprint without the help of your teammates and his team really did a great job for him today.

Cancellara will keep his yellow jersey one more day as forecast but I would like to attract your attention on tomorrow’s stage.

Tomorrow’s stage could be seen like today’s one: a true classic with an echappée caught up a few kilometres away from the finish line to end up in a final sprint. But, if you look at the calendar, with the Team Time Trial just around the corner, tomorrow is actually going to be an interesting stage to watch.

We could all think that people will rest up but we all know that Saxo Bank is going to slow down or at least will not go in any echappée tomorrow just to be sure that they are in the best conditions for the Team Time Trial. It will be very interesting to see how they handle this stage strategically speaking. I would ask my riders to slow down a bit and let an echappée go for it unless Astana is involved.

You know that the Team Time Trial is a super important stage and this is a first great occasion to make a difference in the rankings.

Everybody knows that so I wouldn’t be surprised that tomorrow’s echappée could go to the finish line as most teams will be "resting" to be on top of their games for the Time Trial.

It was a very warm day on the Tour de France and all the riders are already at the hotel resting for tomorrow’s race. Tomorrow should be an "open" stage!

It was a good first stage and the crowd was here to support the riders. The Tour de France is on and I didn’t realize I was missing it so much.

Yours in Sport,

Ronan

Ronan Pensec participated eight times in the Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates Ronan Pensec Travel, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

Lots of crowd today for the first day of this 2009 Tour de France and what a nice prologue!

I didn’t talk much about the prologue course yesterday as I wanted to see the riders performing it to make sure that I had the right feeling about the course. Today’s performances just confirmed my thoughts. This was a very tough prologue with two important parts: the beginning with a long climb where heavy riders were penalized, and a very technical downhill at the end that cost some folks a lot of seconds on the finish line. I hope you also noticed how often the riders had to adjust their speed and brackets. It showed once again how technical it was and how painful it must have been!

For all these reasons, we have to celebrate today a great Cancellara. His ride was just great. He didn’t suffer much in the first technical part with that long uphill, and then he simply smashed away any competition in the downhill towards the finish line. For proof: he even passed Menchov one kilometre before the finish line.

Just for the records, I think that Menchov’s car and Menchov himself helped Cancellara in the downhill and for the finish…well done Mr. Cancellara!

As I told you yesterday, Menchov paid today for his strong Giro and it was no surprise to me to see him underperforming. It’s no surprise as well to see all the favourites doing well today. Evans, Sastre or even Leipheimer gave a good shot at it and didn’t lose much time.

Regarding Lance: I think he did great with a 10th position. Given the fact that he didn’t have the chance to do much time trialing before Monaco, I think this is the best start he could have taken on this Tour. He is right on track so keep an eye on him.

You should also keep an eye on the Liquigas and Astana teams as they look like the strongest teams on the field today. Look out for lots of strategic moves from these teams; it will be fun to watch!

Tomorrow will be a good day for sprinters and I would go for a win of Cavendish even if there is a little climb right before the final sprint. He could do something great tomorrow and if he is not, guys like Haussle and Bennati will surely be looking for a win as well.

I think that this year will be a super-open race compared to the previous years and this provides me lots of excitement. It was a great kick off, the crowd loved it and I hope that the next 3 weeks will have the same flavour!

Yours in Sport,

Ronan

Ronan Pensec participated eight times in the Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates Ronan Pensec Travel, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

It’s with great pleasure that I will have once again the opportunity to provide you with my feedbacks on the race everyday.

I can’t remember how many Tour de France I have watched (I do remember how many I raced) but what is sure is that it doesn’t matter if you are a pro cyclist, a weekend warrior, or even a former yellow jersey like me, you are always super thrilled when it’s about to start.

This Tour de France looks very exciting with lots of interesting finishes. I have had a good look at the course the other day and I must confess that I would love to do it. Special credit goes to this massive third week with the Alps stages, the Ventoux on Saturday and all its drama before the final run to Paris. I can’t wait!

Because of this “hilly” third week, I think that the winner of this Tour will have to be a climber.

Thing is that even if you do a great third week in the Alps, you get the Ventoux on Saturday and still have one day to go to get to Paris. And I know from my experience that anything can happen in the Ventoux. Climbers will have their shot at it this year for sure. So don’t miss that day, check you calendars, book the whole night and watch this live. It will be one of these great days in the Tour’s history.

So here we are, we have a great course, with a fancy start in Monaco, then, you look at the athletes engaged and you become even more thrilled about this 2009 Tour de France: Contador, Cadel Evans, Sastre, the Schleck brothers, the Astana team and its phenomenon Lance Armstrong! What else could you ask for?

The Tour is already the greatest cycling event on the planet but with Lance’s comeback, you just get it all at once…and this is going to last for 3 weeks! When you think about it, Lance is by far the only superstar cycling has ever had and having him coming back, this is almost too much! Seriously, Lance’s come back is one of the greatest things that has happened to the Tour since he won his titles. Coming back with no ambition than just enjoying the sports, helping his charity Livestrong, it just shows the world what a great man he is.

You may not realize how tough a Tour de France is for your body, but it really is one of the toughest effort you can do in today’s sports. So you have to realize that you can’t just say “Well, I’m back” and expect to have fun or even finish it. It’s not like a golf player who is willing to do a comeback. This is serious work to get back in a shape to feel confident to take the start and it requires even more work to get enough trained to perform well even if your name is Lance Armstrong! This is a former yellow jersey telling you that. I never thought about coming back, just for that one reason. Lance is even fitter than he used to be in 2005 and he has taken back his 2005 position on his bike. The guy is going for it, I’m telling you.

Talking about Lance and because it’s my first post, most of you will be waiting for my favourites (I hope). I won’t make you wait any longer, so here they are: Contador, Evans, Sastre, Armstrong, Andy Schleck and Leipheimer. I don’t think Menchov is a real threat; he will be tired off his great Giro and shouldn’t have enough resources to make it.

If I had to pick one among these athletes, I would go for Andy Schleck because cycling needs some fresh blood I think and Andy looks like a great sportsman with a true cycling heritage. Fingers crossed!

So, regarding tomorrow now, here is my first insight of this year’s Tour. Astana is going to have Lance starting the prologue in first and Contador finishing it. You know that usually, you would launch your best shot at the end but Astana has been in Monaco for several days and so have I. You notice that everyday is very sunny except during the last hour of the afternoon where you can even have some light rains. I think Astana wanted to get Lance going first to make sure he is got he ideal conditions to perform and put the pressure on the other teams.

This prologue is like the Team time trial. This is not just a very nice stage, great for the public and all that, it’s almost the perfect setup to put pressure on your competition. So don’t look at the prologue or the team time trial just like a great day of cycling with athletes riding the nicest bikes in the world, a lot of strategy is taking place during these moments and tomorrow it starts with Lance going first!

Finally, I would just like to write a note about Boonen who has finally been accepted on the Tour this year after two positive controls. Some will say that it’s once again a shame for the sports and I could understand that but I will argue the opposite. I think it’s good for cycling that Boonen got in. We need all the pros on the line tomorrow to make this Tour de France one of the greatest. Boonen made a big mistake during “this party” and I’m sure he has already paid the price for his mistake. It wasn’t doping to perform better and I think Justice should have been clearer and more strict from the beginning. With all these changes, it’s the whole legal process that lost a bit of credibility here I think…but we will have other opportunities to talk about doping in later posts…

I’m looking for a lot of great moments of sports during the three upcoming weeks and am truly happy to be able to share them with you. So feel free to contact me if you have any question as it’s always a pleasure to share my passion of cycling with all of you.

To a great Tour de France!

Ronan Pensec participated eight times in the Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates Ronan Pensec Travel, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

Stayed tuned to Active.com as we follow the pro peloton through May and June in the lead-up to the 2009 Tour de France. When the Tour starts in Monaco on July 4, we'll also kick off our daily coverage with expert commentary from cycling journalist Bruce Hildenbrand, former pro cyclists Frankie Andreu and Ronan Pensec, Active Expert Gale Bernhardt, plus exclusive sneak-peaks into the Team Garmin-Slipstream bus, and more.

And don't forget about our daily emails and trivia contest, where you can win great prizes. Be here May 9 when the 100th Giro d'Italia kicks off.

What a Tour de France we have seen this year! For the first time in a few years, I feel that this year's winner, the Spaniard Carlos Sastre, well deserves his victory.

Sastre, of Team CSC, has been in the peloton for ten years and has never been in a tricky situation regarding a doping case. This rider has built his victory this year not only with his legs but also with his brain, which I really like.

Besides that, this Tour de France was great for the French, who claimed a few stage victories. But what about the new king of massive sprints--the young British gun Mark Cavendish! This guy is awesome and I hope to see him again and again in big races.

I'll keep in mind, of course, the dismissal from the race of Riccardo Ricco and his Saunier Duval team. But I say, "Keep outing the cheaters. Cycling doesn't need you!"

I want to also mention Cadel Evans. Of course this guy could have been the winner this year, but he needed to attack and have a better team around him.

I believe that next year will be a great Tour de France, with, I hope, a great fight between Evans, Sastre, the Schleck brothers and Alberto Contador. A new generation has arrived and it will be awesome to see all those guys in the mountains next year!

Now it's the time for all of us to raise a glass of Champagne to celebrate this year's winner.

Please do not hesitate to post your comments, as I will be glad to share ideas and comments with you. And remember, if you want to enjoy the Tour de France from the inside, do it with www.RonanPensecTravel.com , the official Tour de France operator. VIP passes, exclusive interviews with the pros, and so much more to live together!

Ronan Pensec participated in 8 Tours, and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates+Ronan Pensec Events+, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

What a day for Sylvain Chavanel! After eight Tour de Frances and several attacks over the last two weeks, the sympathetic French rider, Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis), has finally got his first-ever stage win in the Tour de France. Even if Chavanel had announced three days ago that he would ride next year for the rival Belgium QuickStep team, he got the stage win today as a gift from his Team of the last four years.

Other than that, the peloton and its leader, Carlos Sastre (CSC), have had a pretty quiet day today. All the top riders seems to be already focusing on the very important Time Trial that will decide of the final ranking of the magnificent edition of the Tour de France.

It has been a very long time that the last Time Trial has been so important. What will happen tomorrow between the excellent climber Sastre and Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto), no one can tell. Of course, Evans on paper is far better in this specific kind of race than the smaller Sastre, but after 19 very tiring stages, its a really different game. Stay tuned for a very interesting day tomorrow with the final Time Trial. Hope you've enjoyed this year's Tour de France as much as me.

Please do not hesitate to post me your comments as I will be glad to share ideas and comments with you. And remember, if you want to enjoy the Tour de France from the inside, do it with www.RonanPensecTravel.com, the official Tour de France operator. VIP passes, exclusive interviews with the pros, and so much more to live together!

Ronan Pensec participated in 8 Tours, and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates Ronan Pensec Events, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

It was another transition day at the Tour today, as we expected, and I think tomorrow will be pretty much the same.

We will have some guys going for the stage win, but I don't think there will be any change in the general ranking until the time trial. And I wouldn't be too confident if I was Cadel Evans, because he will definitely have all the pressure on his shoulders. I keep on saying that he should win the Tour thanks to his time trial ability. But in the meantime, here at the Tour everyone else is saying the same thing, so I'm sure Evans knows everybody is now waiting for him to produce.

Today saw the victory of Marcus Burghardt, who is a pretty young and talented cyclist. I kind of like this guy because he has been working hard for his team, and I think that a stage win is well-deserved. Keep an eye on him in the future. People backstage at the Tour have been talking a lot about him recently.

Finally, I'd like to talk about this crazy situation where Mr. Schleck, the father of Andy and Frank, got pulled over by customs officials for an unexpected search of his car. The police didn't find anything expect some aspirin. It looks like an anonymous person called the police and said that he was carrying drugs for his children!

Anyway, behind this fact, I think it's a bit of a joke to be so aggressive over cyclists. I'm not saying they shouldn't control as much as they are doing right now, but there are proper ways to get things done. And this was not nice behaviour at all. Cyclists have done bad things, and some still do--there is no doubt about this. But in the meantime, rather than asking ourselves why some cyclists take doping products, we should ask ourselves why cycling is the only sport that is so much controlled?

Honestly, I doubt there are no other sports where athletes take illegal products to get better. We are always talking about cycling and athletics as if the two are purely physical sports. Well, I'm sorry, but like any other sport, these both require good tactics, strategy, and mental skills to perform.

So let's continue the controls after the race and during the season, but let's make sure we control the right people and we do it the right way.

This Tour de France has been one of the best in a long time, and I'm glad to see that the doping cases haven't affected the show as much as they used to do.

Please do not hesitate to post your comments, as I will be glad to share ideas and comments with you. And remember, if you want to enjoy the Tour de France from the inside, do it with www.RonanPensecTravel.com , the official Tour de France operator. VIP passes, exclusive interviews with the pros, and so much more to live together!

Ronan Pensec participated in 8 Tours, and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates+Ronan Pensec Events+, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

I was expecting today to be a real decisive day for the Tour, but, fortunately, nothing is obvious tonight.

Cadel Evans is 1:34 behind the yellow jersey, and while I think it won't be enough to prevent him from winning this Tour, it's not going to be that easy for him. The time trial is going to be decisive again, and I'm not sure that this is the best thing for the race. Playing the Tour on the time trial might help to celebrate one rider, but not a team.

But today was another CSC day. They are having such a great Tour de France that I feel like it's a bit of a shame for them to (maybe) miss the yellow jersey at the end of the week.

I think the weather conditions, with a lot of wind today, have really impacted the race. If the conditions had been better, the CSC team would have done a much better job and Evans wouldn't be as confident tonight. In an ideal world, CSC should have attacked very early. But given the weather, I think they realized they couldn't, and they decided to wait and launch Sastre on l'Alpe d'Huez.

Once again, l'Alpe d'Huez has hosted an incredible show. It is always completely crazy and fantastic to live through moments like that in sports. And more generally speaking, as I have been working with France2, the French TV channel that produces the images of the Tour, I can tell you that the audiences all around the world have been really high this year. Lots of people watch the Tour in France but also all around the world, and it's really good for cycling.

I will keep on predicting that the final result will be Evans No. 1 and Sastre No. 2.

Tomorrow will not be a "rest day," as I'm pretty sure CSC will try to keep a high pace just to show Evans that they will give everything until they cross the finish line in Paris. So keep an eye on tomorrow, there could be some surprises within the next 48 hours.

Please do not hesitate to post your comments, as I will be glad to share ideas and comments with you. And remember, if you want to enjoy the Tour de France from the inside, do it with www.RonanPensecTravel.com , the official Tour de France operator. VIP passes, exclusive interviews with the pros, and so much more to live together!

Ronan Pensec participated in 8 Tours, and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates+Ronan Pensec Events+, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

We were expecting a more challenging stage today, with more fights and attacks from the riders, but it wasn't as great as I thought it would be. Given the OK performance of Frank Schleck, I even feel like the Tour de France is already over as Cadel Evans is by far the fastest time trialist among all the contenders.

If you think about it, Schleck and the other contenders will have to pretty much win by four minutes on Evans in tomorrow's stage to have a chance to win in Paris. But who is going to take four minutes on Evans on the Alpe d'Huez?

Despite the fact that the Tour might already be over (even if it's never over until you cross the finish line), I think we are having one of the greatest in decades. Can you believe that we have three guys within 10 seconds after two weeks? They have spent more then 68 hours on their bikes and only 10 seconds separate them. Wow!

Some may say that the Tour lacks a real "boss" in the peloton and it's sometimes good to see someone like that, but it feels really fresh without one. I will say this: the Tour would be perfect so far if we didn't have some stupid guys doping themselves.

Tomorrow's l'Alpe d'Huez is always a great moment in the Tour, but with today's rankings, it's just going to be crazy! 500,000 people are predicted to line the roads! And who knows, maybe Schleck didn't do so well today so he can strike hard tomorrow. I'm all excited about it and I hope you are too!

Please do not hesitate to post your comments, as I will be glad to share ideas and comments with you. And remember, if you want to enjoy the Tour de France from the inside, do it with www.RonanPensecTravel.com , the official Tour de France operator. VIP passes, exclusive interviews with the pros, and so much more to live together!

Ronan Pensec participated in 8 Tours, and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates+Ronan Pensec Events+, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

What a great day at the Tour today, even if it much of it had to do with the weather conditions, which really impacted the race. Frank Schleck is now in yellow by only seven seconds and the top 6 is within 50 seconds of each other. Isn't it just great?

With a rest day tomorrow, all these guys should be OK for some great action in the Alps, which should lead to a fantastic finish in Paris. Many people today talked about Denis Menchov, saying that he could be the yellow jersey in Paris. It seems pretty interesting, and I invite you to re-watch his race today as he was always in the hunt but wasn't doing anything sensational...as if he was trying not to draw attention to himself. Pretty smart move if it really is the case.

Evans still has some reserve and such a strong motivation that losing the yellow jersey will not impact his mental state. I was able to see him right before the post-race doping tests and he was feeling very confident. I think he knew he would loose the jersey today, but I felt like these eight seconds conceded to Schleck were less than what he was expecting.

The Tour will now enjoy a well-deserved rest day. I told you yesterday that today would be important, and I was quite right. All the pros are really sore, and even some of the best guys, like Sylvain Chavanel, were pretty close to not making the cut. What a day and what a Tour de France!

Over these last two weeks, I feel like the performances are a little under the level from previous years and that we are getting back to a more human race. The audience is responding well to this Tour de France as the roads have been seriously packed since the beginning of the event. It's really nice to see that, and if we can finish the Tour without another doping case, we will be able to say that cycling is on the right track.

Please do not hesitate to post your comments, as I will be glad to share ideas and comments with you. And remember, if you want to enjoy the Tour de France from the inside, do it with www.RonanPensecTravel.com , the official Tour de France operator. VIP passes, exclusive interviews with the pros, and so much more to live together!

Ronan Pensec participated in 8 Tours, and wore the yellow jersey in 1990 while racing for Greg Lemond's Z team. He now operates+Ronan Pensec Events+, an official Tour de France operator hosting VIP cycling tours for recreational cycling enthusiasts.

Incoming Links

ACTIVE is the leader in online event registrations from 5k running races and marathons to softball leagues and local events. ACTIVE also makes it easy to learn and prepare for all the things you love to do with expert resources, training plans and fitness calculators.